Kernel Log: Coming in 3.10 (Part 3)

For Linux 3.10, the kernel developers have modified code designed to protect Samsung laptops from faults caused by a problem with garbage collection in the UEFI firmware. The changes mean that the previously sometimes over-eager protection feature, which had occasionally blocked machines from other manufacturers from setting or modifying UEFI variables, will swing into action less frequently. A recent test by c't magazine, for example, found that several test machines were missing UEFI entries for booting the installed Linux OS following UEFI Linux installation, due to UEFI entry creation having been blocked by this feature. Users can solve situations like this by using efibootmgr on a LiveCD Linux, such as Fedora 18 or Ubuntu 12.10, that doesn't contain the code to protect Samsung notebooks and manually create a UEFI boot entry; obviously this option should not be used with a Samsung device. Details of the approach adopted by the revised protection feature can be found in a blog entry by kernel developer Matthew Garrett.

Tickless

Linux can now slow the timer interrupt for individual CPU cores, which normally fires 100, 250 or 1000 times per second, to just one interrupt per second.

Those of you with long memories may recall that webOS is already open source, having originally been designed for tablet computers under the auspices of HP Inc (or Hewlett Packard as it was at the time). Even the unfinished overhaul at the time that LG took it underground is open source.

LG Electronics is moving webOS beyond TVs with the release of webOS Open Source Edition. WebOS is a multitasking operating system that was designed for smart devices and smart TVs.
Before coming to LG, webOS was launched as Palm OS in 2009. It was acquired by HP in 2010, and then licensed to LG in 2013. Since then, the company has been using the technology for its smart TVs and refrigerators.
“WebOS has come a long way since then and is now a mature and stable platform ready to move beyond TVs to join the very exclusive group of operating systems that have been successfully commercialization at such a mass level. As we move from an app-based environment to a web-based one, we believe the true potential of webOS has yet to be seen,” said I.P. Park, chief technology officer at LG Electronics.

Red Hat News

Is Red Hat on the shopping list for Google? Could be. But the cost would not be cheap with Red Hat’s stock having nearly doubled in price over the past year. A takeover would likely cost more than $30 billion and spark a bidding war. At that price a deal would rank among the most expensive ever in tech.
A top executive for the cloud behemoth tells Bloomberg News that Google is “constantly on the lookout for a major acquisition.” Growing Google’s cloud business is the responsibility of Diane Greene as chief executive of Google Cloud. And Raleigh-based Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) is a cloud player, providing technology services and support for a growing number of clients. In fact, CNBC’s Jim Cramer just days ago cited Red Hat as one of his “cloud kings.”

The companies aim to extend additional rights to cure open source licence non-compliance which, according to Red Hat, will lead to greater cooperation with distributors of open source software to correct errors and increased participation in open source software development.

Today, six more technology companies – CA Technologies, Cisco, HPE, Microsoft, SAP and SUSE -- have all committed to offering the GPLv3 cure approach to licensees of their GPLv2, LGPLv2.1 and LGPLv2 licensed code (except in cases of a defensive response to a legal proceeding). The GPLv3 cure approach offers licensees of GPLv2 code a period of time to come into compliance before their licenses are terminated but does not involve the relicensing of the code under GPLv3.

On the Red Hat Developer blog there have been a number of recent articles that cover various aspects Keycloak/RH-SSO integration. A recent DevNation Live Tech Talk covered Securing Spring Boot Microservices with Keycloak. This article discusses the features of Keycloak/RH-SSO that you should be aware of.

The all new and shiny Red Hat Decision Manager 7 has been recently released. Decision Manager 7 is the successor to Red Hat JBoss BRMS, our business rules and decision management platform. In this post we will have a look at the primary new features and provide instructions on how to get started with the new platform, either on your local machine or in an OpenShift Container Platform.
Red Hat Decision Manager 7 focuses on four main themes: Fit & Finish, Cloud-Native, Decision Model and Notation (DMN), and Business Optimizer.

Linaro and 96Boards.org unveiled a “96Boards.ai” initiative along with several Linux-based hacker boards that comply with it: Arrow’s DragonBoard 820C, HiSilicon’s Hikey970, Rockchip’s Rock960, Avnet’s Ultra96, and an upcoming Socionext board.
At Linaro Connect in Hong Kong, Linaro announced yet another variation on its open source 96Boards spec called 96Boards.ai. The Linux-supported platform is designed for open source, Arm-based SBCs with “high performance real-time computer vision and intelligent audio processing, supported by machine learning algorithms and deep learning technology,” says Linaro.

Latest News

Games: Atari, Coregrounds and More

Atari has announced that the unreleased Ataribox has been rebranded as the Atari VCS [Official Site] and they say they will reveal the date for pre-orders next month. Their wording has been interesting, as they say the "pre-order date to be announced in April.", not that it actually will begin in April. They're still being all very coy about it all.

The developer said that they're aiming to create an experience that has the strategic diversity of a MOBA, yet it plays like a tower defense game. It sounds pretty darn interesting and considering they're going for a free to play model, with only vanity items for purchase as everything else is unlocked by playing it, so they could be onto a winner.

Security: Endgame, Updates, antiX, Fedora and SELinux

Endgame, the leader in unified endpoint protection against targeted attacks, today announced it released a set of open-source tools that allow enterprises to test defenses against modern attacker behaviors. These tools, called red team automation (RTA), directly map to MITRE's ATT&CK™ matrix, the most comprehensive framework for attacker techniques and tactics. Security teams that lack sufficient time and resources will now have the ability to measure protection capabilities beyond malware-based attacks.

The first point release of the Debian-based antiX 17 "Heather Heyer" operating system series arrived this past weekend with a new kernel patched against the Meltdown and Spectre security flaws, as well as the latest software versions.
antiX 17.1 (Heather Heyer) is now available, powered by the Linux 4.9.87 LTS kernel patched against the Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities unearthed in January 2018 and discovered to put billions of devices at risk of attacks. This protects new antiX installations against these type of attacks.
Based on the latest Debian GNU/Linux 9.4 "Stretch" operating system, antiX 17.1 comes with up-to-date packages from its software repositories, including the LibreOffice 5.2.7 office suite and Mozilla Firefox 52.7.1 ESR web browser. Additionally, this release comes with eudev 3.5 and latest xf86-video-sisimedia-antix release.

January saw the annoucement of a series of critical vulnerabilities called Spectre and Meltdown. The nature of these issues meant the solutions were complex and required fixing delicate code. The initial fix for Meltdown on x86 was KPTI, which was available almost immediately. Developing mitigations for Spectre was more complex. Other architectures had to look at their vulnerability status as well, and get mitigation in where it was needed. As a bit of time has passed, what is the exposure on Fedora now?

You Can Now Transform Your Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ into a Home Theatre System

OSMC (Open Source Media Center), the free and open-source media player operating system based on the Linux kernel and designed for single-board computers received March 2018's update with dozens of changes, including support for the latest Raspberry Pi model.
Raspberry Pi Foundation announced last week on Pi Day, March 14, 2018, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ single-board computer (SBC), which features updated hardware, including a 1.4GHz 64-bit Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.2, Dual-band 802.11ac wireless LAN, and PoE support.
The developers of the OSMC Linux OS (formerly RaspBMC) received some pre-production units from Raspberry Pi Foundation to prepare their upcoming release for the new SBC, and March's update is now live with Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ support, allowing you to transform it into a versatile home theatre system.